Oi Vey!
by CeeSixAychTwelveOhSix
Summary: Yes, she's at it again! C6H12O6's attempt at an unofficial fanfic100. Rating for later chapters.
1. 001: Beginnings

**A/N: **This is my unofficial attempt at fanfic100, a la the LJ community. I don't have an LJ account, and my character choice was already taken by the time I heard about this little idea, so I'm going to write it and post it here. It's going to be a bit of a long-winded project, but I'm up for it. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** I am not J. K. Rowling. If I were, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction. I'd be writing canon.

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001. Beginnings

The brightly colored displays in the shop windows were intended to draw the attention of the people passing by, arouse their curiosity, and entice them to come in and buy something. More often than not, however, the displays only drew the attention of children passing by with their parents. Which was almost as good, for some shopkeepers. Children were known to have the ability to talk their parents into buying things. Unfortunately for one Mr. Carlton Jarvis, few children ever felt compelled into entering _his_ shop, and the adults who came in rarely bought anything. He sighed, turning away from the front window of his shop. Oh well. Such was the cost of owning a rare books store.

The tiny bell over the doorway tinkled, the light tone causing Mr. Jarvis to halt in his steps. He turned around slowly to see a young girl, possibly six or seven years old, holding on to the hand of a very well dressed man in about his early thirties. His face held an expression of great bemusement; the girl's held one of determination. She marched up to the confused store owner and held out her hand.

"I'm Hermione Granger, and I have nothing to read."

Mr. Jarvis took the small girl's hand and shook it gently, trying to keep the delighted smile off of his face. He noticed that her grip was strong for such a small hand; misleading, much like (he was willing to bet) the rest of her. The old man turned his head to look at the younger man, whom he suspected was the girl's father.

Mr. Granger shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed. "She's read every child's book we own at least twice," he explained, "and she's cleaned out the library. I was hoping you might have something she hasn't read yet."

The old shop keeper chuckled and looked back at the girl. Hermione was staring up at the man impatiently, as if waiting for him to regain his manners and introduce himself. He cleared his throat. "Carlton Jarvis, at your service Miss Granger," he stated to the precocious youth. "Perhaps I might have something for you. Do you happen to enjoy the sciences?" He withheld a laugh as he watched the girl's eyes light up. This was, he could tell, the beginning of a long and healthy relationship. "Right this way, then. I think I may have just the thing you're looking for..."


	2. 002: Middles

002. Middles

Hermione Granger was always in the middle of something or other.

Whether it was an essay, a book, a project, saving the world with Harry, or an argument with Ron, she was always in the middle.

She often counted it as a curse. It seemed to the young witch that she never had any time to relax. There was never a dull moment in her life, certainly. But sometimes, when no one was around, she let herself wish that she wasn't always in the middle of something. That she could just come to the end and be able to sit back and admire her work. But no. Just as she thought she could finally take a break, something or someone more came up, and she was back at square one.

It was always, "Hermione, help me with this" and "Hermione, I need the answer to that", or "Hermione, would you mind doing a little bit of research for me?", or even "Hermione, since you're so gifted and intelligent, you wouldn't mind taking on even more of a workload, would you?"

"Mione?"

The feeling of an arm wrapping around her waist brought Hermione back to real life. She turned her head to the right to see the smiling, freckled face of Ron Weasley looking down at her. "You alright? You seemed a bit out of it for a moment there."

"Yeah," another voice chimed in, coupled with an arm being slung around her shoulders from the other side. Hermione turned her head to the left in order to see a pair of green eyes behind a terribly smudged pair of glasses. Harry Potter grinned back at her. "We wondered if you were still on Earth."

Hermione smiled and placed her arms around her two best friends. "Oh, yes, I still inhabit the planet." Then again, sometimes it was alright to be in the middle.


	3. 003: Ends

003. Ends

_And so, in conclusion, werewolves are monsters of our own making; victims of circumstances beyond their control. If we continue to refuse to let them live the ordinary lives they deserve, they will grow more and more detached from civilization until, eventually, they become the same man-eating beasts that they are already purported to be. It will be our own acts of prejudice that will be our undoing._

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief as she read over the final paragraph of her letter to the Minister of Magic; it was finally finished. After weeks and weeks of agonizing over the precise wording, and draft after scrapped draft thrown into the wastebasket, the essay was at an end. Now all she had to do was sign her name. She moved her hand to dip the end of the quill in the inkwell, and-

"Oi! Hermione!"

The unannounced and unanticipated voice startled the girl and she jumped, her hand bumping the inkwell and causing it to wobble. She watched in complete and utter mortification as the vessel teetered on edge before tipping over and dumping its contents all over her desk and onto the letter to the Minister. The black ink swallowed up the words on the parchment, turning the surface of the page ebony as Hermione watched, unable to act, her mouth open in a perfect "o" of horror. Silence engulfed the room as her catalytic visitor watched, waiting for the girl to jump up and start clawing his eyes out.

Hermione slowly turned in her seat to be faced with a very frightened redhead. Ron's freckles stood out like beacons against his pale face. He took a step back. "Mione, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- I had no idea that you were busy- I just wanted to say-"

"Three weeks," the brunette whispered, her voice dangerously low, stopping the boy in his proverbial tracks. "I've spent three weeks on that essay to the Minister. I've hardly seen sunlight for a total of twenty-one days. I've stopped to eat once every two days, gone to the loo twice that, and avoided human contact for _three weeks!_" Her voice was climbing, close to hitting the point of hysteria. Ron began to fear for his life.

"And then _you_," she shrieked, pointing madly at the boy, "_you_ walk into my room, and _shout _my name, and cause me to spill ink _all over the essay!_ In a matter of three seconds! _Three seconds!_" Her eyes were livid, and despite the fact that he was at least a foot taller than the girl, Ron felt incredibly small at that moment.

"I said I was sorry," he offered feebly.

And then the strangest thing happened. Hermione stopped seething and blinked. She stared at the boy for a second or two. And then...

She burst out laughing.

Ron stood awkwardly in the center of the room, wanting desperately to be anywhere but there at that moment, as Hermione Granger laughed hysterically. The girl continued for maybe a total of two minutes before she stopped to catch her breath. She looked up at the boy and immediately started giggling again. "Oh, Ronald..." She walked over to him and pulled him into a hug. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten so mad. You should see your face!"

_My_ face? the boy thought dryly. What about _your_ face, Miss 'I'm going to rip your throat out through your nostrils'? "It's alright," he replied nervously, patting her back. She pulled away and he smiled weakly. "Anything I could do to help? Want me to re-write it for you?"

Hermione shook her head, a smile on her face. "No. It's really alright. I can always write one better." Ron believed that she was telling the truth, mostly, but the twitch in the corner of her eye was a little bit frightening. He simply nodded and decided that maybe it would be better to wait for a while before asking if she would help him with his schoolwork.


	4. 004: Insides

004. Insides

"Hermione? Darling, where are you?"

A heavy sigh. "I'm in my room, mother." Hermione cringed as the sound of footsteps drew nearer. She hastily pushed the photo album under her pillow and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. She picked up her Transfiguration text just as her mother opened the door and entered the room.

Dr. Granger smiled at her only child; she was so proud of her daughter. Although Hermione never really spoke much of what occurred at school, her parents knew that she had already accomplished much in her short life. And yet... Dr. Granger's smile faltered a bit. And yet, there were times when their daughter seemed frightened. Haunted, almost. She longed to ask Hermione what was bothering her.

But Hermione had always been independent of her parents; even as a child, she hadn't really seemed to need them. She had never cried on her mother's lap or pouted until her father bought her a new toy. She had always been able to help herself. And try as her parents might, they had never been able to draw out their daughter. The never-ending quest of finding Hermione... almost a story title.

Dr. Granger opened her daughter's bedroom door and leaned against the door frame, respecting her daughter's wish for privacy. "Your father called," the girl's mother spoke. "He said he'll be home in an hour and wanted to know if you'd like to go out to dinner tonight." The sentence lingered in the air uncomfortably; both women felt as if something was unsaid, but neither was sure how to get it out in the open or if they even wanted to.

Hermione took a deep breath, looking up from her book. "Did you... would you like to come in?" The smile on her mother's face sent a pang of guilt through the girl's chest; she knew she hadn't been spending much time with her family since... well, since she had started school at Hogwarts, really. She didn't think that she'd had a heart-to-heart talk with her mother since she was twelve, and then it had been about how much she wanted a pet, and would it really be a problem if she got a cat. And the last time she'd gone anywhere just with her father had been the five minute drive to and from the grocery store the week before when she had needed a new pack of hair elastics.

It wasn't that she didn't love her parents. It was just that they didn't know her. They couldn't relate to anything that she was going through, although that was hardly their fault. Who expected dentists to know anything about dark marks and horcruxes? And it wasn't like she could ask them for help with homework; not that she needed any help, but what muggle in their right mind would care about the magical properties of flobberworm mucus? On that note, what muggle even knew what a flobberworm was?

"Transfiguration..." Hermione glanced up to see her mother peering down at the text book she held in her hands. "Changing one thing to another? Can you show me a spell?" The teen was about to protest that it probably wasn't the best idea, that she really shouldn't do magic in a muggle neighborhood, but the hopeful look on her mother's face convinced her otherwise. What could it hurt? Hermione was of age, after all.

"Sure, Mother," the girl replied with a half-smile. "Will you hand me that pen?" she asked, pointing at the writing utensil in her mother's lab coat pocket (ever the dentists, the Grangers often remained in their work uniforms while at home). Wordlessly the older woman handed her daughter the pen. A look of concentration crossed the girl's face, and with a mumbled incantation and a wave of the wand, the pen became a yellow daisy. Hermione handed the flower to her awed mother with a smile. "Here. Keep it. Unless you want your pen back...?"

"No, no, I love it," Dr. Granger replied. "It's simply lovely." She tucked the daisy carefully back in the pocket that had previously held a pen, admiring the bright flower as she did so, before looking back at her daughter, then at the book lying open on the bed. "That wasn't what you were reading when I called up, was it?" the woman asked perceptively, running a finger absently over the book's spine. Hermione glanced down at her hand clenched around her wand before shaking her head, confirming her mother's suspicion. Dr. Granger's eyes fell on the poorly concealed photo album behind her daughter and she sighed. "Miss your friends?"

Hermione avoided her mother's eyes as she nodded her response in the affirmative. Neither of her parents knew of her plans for the next school year; the promise she and Ron had made to Harry that they would go with him on the search for the horcruxes weighed heavily on her mind. She didn't want her father and mother to worry about her.

Dr. Granger wanted nothing more than to worry about her daughter. "Could I see a few pictures of you three? I haven't seen either of them since the summer before your third year, when we went shopping with you."

Hermione eyed the book hiding under her pillow. What was the harm in letting her mother look at pictures of her two best friends? The girl reached behind her back and pulled the photo album out, opening it up to the middle. "This is a picture of us in our fourth year," she narrated to her wide-eyed mother, taking time to remember exactly what had been happening in the scene unfolding in the moving picture. Collin Creevy had taken it between the first task and the Yule Ball; Hermione knew this because, in the picture, she and Ron were getting along. The trio was lounging in the common room; the boys playing wizard's chess and Hermione leaning over Ron's shoulder, watching Ron's knight obliterate one of Harry's pawns. The girl smiled wistfully as she turned the page.

"And this one is us at the train station the beginning of fifth year." Hermione really had no idea who had brought a camera with them; Sirius had probably slipped it into one of the twins' pockets. The former Marauder himself was in the picture, albeit in dog form, being said "goodbye" to by Harry. Ron and Hermione were also bidding farewell to Snuffles, but it was a bit less tearful on their parts (though Harry would never admit to crying). Remembering Sirius caused a pang in Hermione's chest and she paused, lingering on the picture a little bit longer than she'd intended. Her mother noticed but said nothing, knowing that her daughter would probably evade the subject if she asked any questions.

"And who are these fine looking gentlemen?" Dr. Granger indicated a snapshot of Hermione being bombarded by identical red-heads. "Your boyfriend's brothers?"

"Ronald isn't my boyfriend," the girl protested softly, shutting the album firmly and startling her mother in the process. "Mother, I've got work due at the beginning of the term that I absolutely must finish."

The dentist merely sighed and stood up from her seat on her daughter's bed. "Alright, darling." The woman hesitated. "Should I call your father and tell him that you're not feeling up to eating out tonight?" she queried.

Hermione closed her eyes and turned her head to face the opposite wall. "Yes, if you don't mind." The teen tried to ignore the look of disappointment and hurt on her mother's face as the older woman left her bedroom. She didn't like hurting her parents' feelings, really... but there was no other choice. They just wouldn't ever be able to understand what was going on in their daughter's life.


	5. 005: Outsides

005. Outsides

She heard the collective gasp as she entered the Great Hall. As she walked down the floor on the arm of her date, she saw the awe-struck (and sometimes jealous) stares of her classmates and peers. She even heard some of the professors murmuring how lovely she looked, and what a pleasant surprise that she should "clean up so nicely".

It all made her sick to the stomach.

The only reason people complimented her that night was because her hair was straight and her dress was flattering and she was wearing make-up. Nothing else even remotely important had changed (besides the tooth-shrinking, but was that really important at all?). She was still the same old Hermione Granger.

But she didn't _look_ like the same old Hermione Granger. So naturally she deserved the many appreciative looks and compliments she'd been getting all night.

It just burned her up inside.

"Her-my-ninny? Vould you like something to drink?"

The girl looked up at her date standing nervously at her side and smiled. "Yes Viktor, that would be lovely. Thank you." She watched as the boy (no, really he was a man) made his way over to the refreshment table and shook her head. At least Viktor didn't care that she didn't always look like a porcelain doll. In fact, he seemed a bit put-off with her new look and had ever-so-bashfully told her that he preferred her hair when it was wild. He was rather adorable when he was uncomfortable, the bookworm mused.

Hermione's eyes wandered over to one of the many tables where a red-headed boy sat, staring glumly in her direction. The girl had to hide a smile. So there were _two_ people in the room who were a bit put-off by her new look. She could live with that.


End file.
